A 13-year-old Brooklyn boy jumped in front of a fusillade of bullets early yesterday, taking a round in the back for a 10-year-old girl.

Destiny Liddie, 10, was hanging out with several friends at 2 a.m. Saturday morning after getting her hair braided by her cousin when a pair of thugs began firing on the kids, hitting Destiny in the arm.

“I knew I was hit, and I fell,” the Destiny said from her hospital bed at Brookdale Hospital. “It was bleeding and burning.”

But with bullets flying, courageous Ellis Mercado, 13, ran to her rescue.

“When she got hit, I heard her screaming,” said Ellis, also at Brookdale. “I grabbed her and dragged her into the building.”

But as he jumped on her, a slug sliced through his back and came out his stomach, grazing Destiny once more in the chest. She was also hit again in the other arm.

“He was ready to give his life up for hers,” said Luis Mercado, 41, father of the young hero. “I’m mad because he got shot, but I’m proud because he saved someone else.”

Residents say the children were casualties of a bloody Brownsville turf war between the Newport Gardens Houses – where Destiny was staying with relatives – and the nearby Riverdale projects, where Ellis lives.

“It’s a stupid, silly, ridiculous beef between two warring factions in the developments,” said Councilman Charles Barron, who visited the kids. “This madness must stop.”

Witnesses said the gunmen had no clear target when they began shooting at 2 a.m. where the group of kids was hanging out, as cousin Carlos Arce Jr., 18, was standing nearby.

Arce said he saw two young men running, and one of them paused and turned, then fired one shot from about 40 feet away. They then began blasting rapid-fire shots at the youngsters.

“They just started shooting towards my cousins,” he said. “He was shooting towards the kids.”

Residents of the area say this is the third day in a row in which their neighborhood has been lit up by gunfire in the bloody row between the warring housing projects. Ironically, the latest shooting occurred just before Newport Day, an annual block party when the neighborhood comes together.

“It’s been three days in a row,” said Margarita Ruiz, 39, a relative of the victims. “It’s terrible here.”